Receiving Irish channels

saphire

Hope that somebody may be able to enlighten.
I currently subscribe to sky mainly due to the fact that without sky I cannot receive TG4 or indeed TV3 (Tv3 i could do without). With an outside aerial on my roof I can get rte 1 & 2 perfectly but not the other irish stations. The guy who installed my aerial spent ages trying to get TG4 but gave up in the end. I got the aerial about 5 years ago. I live north of sligo and presumably get my reception from truskmore, there is however another mountain between me and the truskmore transmitter, would that have some influence on my lack of signal. Finally would DTT hold out any hope for me with regard to TG4. Thanks

scath

saphire wrote: »

Hope that somebody may be able to enlighten.
I currently subscribe to sky mainly due to the fact that without sky I cannot receive TG4 or indeed TV3 (Tv3 i could do without). With an outside aerial on my roof I can get rte 1 & 2 perfectly but not the other irish stations. The guy who installed my aerial spent ages trying to get TG4 but gave up in the end. I got the aerial about 5 years ago. I live north of sligo and presumably get my reception from truskmore, there is however another mountain between me and the truskmore transmitter, would that have some influence on my lack of signal. Finally would DTT hold out any hope for me with regard to TG4. Thanks

Yes DTT will be rolled out for Truskmore in 2009. See: http://www.bci.ie/DTT/licensing.html. Remember Freeview box older than one Irish DTT will use so make sure MPEG4 box that you buy. Around August 2009 I think. Check the network maps. All 3 proposals have the same map by the common roller out of the network-RTÉ NL. Winner announcement on on Monday.check that link then!

Pay DTT will launch either in Q3 or Q4 or Q1 2010.

Regarding the hill, that causes ya some problems some good news for ya, RTÉ and TG4 will be going up on Freesat UK and presumably will change their programming to Irish only on Freesat from Sky (thus drop encyption) for which neither require subscription. (Sky=€150 to install, box & dish) Expected launch is late 2008 or early 2009 and are hiring channel managers etc. Previously March 17th 2009 was determined but indications from online are launch before that date. So not long now. FreeSat is the new BBC-ITV satellite non subs alternative to Sky

You'll have to run out the subscription til end of 12 months contract then you own the box etc. So even without DTT ya may be sorted including RTÉ digital teletext, news etc with subscription after your contract ends..isn't that nice co-incidence :-D

The question is whether TV3 come up with the content to have a channel. I don't know will RTÉ have them on their option meantime to provide programming. Depends on if they change current no-advertising plans to allow it and provide incentive. But TV3 plan two DTT channels and are acquiring Channel 6 the Irish entertainment channel so they may have enough Irish programming for their own channel up there also. But ya won't get the non-Irish content.

So I think just a wait and see.

biologikal

saphire wrote: »

Hope that somebody may be able to enlighten.
I currently subscribe to sky mainly due to the fact that without sky I cannot receive TG4 or indeed TV3 (Tv3 i could do without). With an outside aerial on my roof I can get rte 1 & 2 perfectly but not the other irish stations. The guy who installed my aerial spent ages trying to get TG4 but gave up in the end. I got the aerial about 5 years ago. I live north of sligo and presumably get my reception from truskmore, there is however another mountain between me and the truskmore transmitter, would that have some influence on my lack of signal. Finally would DTT hold out any hope for me with regard to TG4. Thanks

What does your ariel look like? It's possible it's just a VHF ariel, whereas you'd need a UHF/VHF ariel, as RTE1/2 are on VHF, TG4/TV3 on UHF. Something like this is what you'd need:
http://www.wirelesshut.com/0/9966870.html

I know my folks up in South Donegal have seperate VHF and UHF ariels, and can get all 4 no problem.

Some info:

http://www.geocities.com/corkradio/tvch.html
http://www.irish-tv.com/trusk.asp

byte

The hill is most likely the reason the installer couldn't get TV3 or TG4 reliably. UHF transmissions are less forgiving with obstacles, unlike VHF (apparently the main reason RTE1 and 2 never changed to their allocated UHF frequencies).

I'd suspect that you'd have a bit of ghosting on your RTE channels though.

saphire

Thanks lads,
Problem solved if TG4 go on freesat. Looking at my aerial I think its only for vhf but I'm pretty sure the installer tried another aerial at the time. I think Byte could be right about the hill in which case would I be in a better or worse position when DTT is rolled out.
Ps I don't have a ghosting problem with the RTE stations for whatever reason they come in very clear.

biologikal

I don't know for sure, but from what I've read about others experiences, with vans or motorcycles driving past their house causing break-up of digital signals, I'd be inclined to think that there would be similar problems as with UHF.

However, the nature of digital, with error correction, you may get enough signal for it to be ok. At the end of the day, you'll just have to wait and see.

Have you looked/asked your neighbours, see how/what they get, regarding the analogue?